Culture, Cultural Difference and the Foreign

This paper emphasizes the importance of lived experience for debates on cultural differences. Theoretical perspectives are often helpful for discovering common traits of cultures. Moreover they are correctives for subjective perspectives on differences. However, cultural differences are experienced by encountering the possibly conflict-laden foreignness of the other. Hence, with regard to peacefully shared spaces, focusing on a phenomenological approach to experiencing the foreign seems to be more productive than normative approaches through theory of culture. Rather than normatively determining a common concept of culture, responsiveness and dialog - even unsuccessful dialog - are keys for bridging possible conflicts rooted in cultural differences.